If you're talking about skipping blocks you might want to look into how bitcoin works again...

if not by the program, then by user. There is "Current shares CFD:" in stat, i think users must know how big is block, so they can choose go out and wait for next round or not. Why not make some kind of alerts like 'warning: block is large'?

On average, how much is each share worth? Does this sort of statistic even make sense or does it change too much in time?

The question does make sense, it does alter over time which is called the difficulty, but still fairly short term predictions can be fairly accurate. Because a pool gives you shares of lower difficulty though I'm not really sure how you'd correlate a share back to the network difficulty, something slush would definitely be able to answer and maybe someone else knows.

What most people do though is use a calculator like this and just look at the 50% rate to get an idea of what you'd make per day:

I run at about 620Mhash/sec so if I plug in 620000 I get about 13.5 days, but that's for a 50BTC block, slush pays 49BTC so I get 49 / 13.5 = 3.6BTC a day. In the past few days I've gone as low as 3.2 and as high as 4.6, so you still get variance with a pool but that'll give you a rough idea.

If you're talking about skipping blocks you might want to look into how bitcoin works again...

if not by the program, then by user. There is "Current shares CFD:" in stat, i think users must know how big is block, so they can choose go out and wait for next round or not. Why not make some kind of alerts like 'warning: block is large'?

You're still thinking in the wrong terms, it's not that a block is large it's the random chance that gives the variance. If I take ten coins and flip them the chance they will all be heads is around 1 in a 1000. After about 500 flips I've got a 50/50 chance. If we both went and did it now maybe you'd flip 10 heads first go, maybe I'd be trying all day and still not achieve it.

Maybe after your initial success everyone would think you're luckier than me and starting backing you to flip 10 in a row, and next thing you'd have no luck for a day and I'd do a quick succession of lucky coin flips they'd all missed out on.

On average, how much is each share worth? Does this sort of statistic even make sense or does it change too much in time?

The question does make sense, it does alter over time which is called the difficulty, but still fairly short term predictions can be fairly accurate. Because a pool gives you shares of lower difficulty though I'm not really sure how you'd correlate a share back to the network difficulty, something slush would definitely be able to answer and maybe someone else knows.

What most people do though is use a calculator like this and just look at the 50% rate to get an idea of what you'd make per day:

I run at about 620Mhash/sec so if I plug in 620000 I get about 13.5 days, but that's for a 50BTC block, slush pays 49BTC so I get 49 / 13.5 = 3.6BTC a day. In the past few days I've gone as low as 3.2 and as high as 4.6, so you still get variance with a pool but that'll give you a rough idea.

yeah it varies way too much to really be able to predict much. I stopped trying to anticipate a certain reward long ago, and I played the pool jumping game once when I first started mining but I realized that if you are a dedicated miner just choose a pool and stick to it and let it roll....

I am mining with a little over a 1 g/hash (approx 1010 m/hashs) my reward per round usually varies .14 - .17 give or take

with that 4 second round I got .57 (which was the best block for me ever and was super happy)

then of course we got that killer 4 hour round right after which made me realize that either the BTC network has a sense of humor or this thing is way too based on luck to really be able to nail any set number down.

personally I think Slush's pool is the best place to be for many reasons, and you certainly cannot judge any pool based on only 2.5 hours of mining. You should of stayed for the whole round thats why you didnt see any reward, it was just your unluckly day that you decided to experiment in one of the longest rounds we have had in awhile.

Good comment. i'll think about it.ps:"with that 4 second round I got .57 (which was the best block for me ever and was super happy)" - if you have 1ghash - then yes, you'll get that block. Any other 'slow speed-miners'like me will get sweat message 'STOLED' as the reward.))

On average, how much is each share worth? Does this sort of statistic even make sense or does it change too much in time?

Every share is worth on average the block reward divided by the difficulty. So if the reward (minus fee) is 49BTC and difficulty is 244139, we're talking about 0.0002 BTC which is 200 uBTC. And, while we're on the subject, every 4.3 billion hashes will give you on average one share.

if not by the program, then by user. There is "Current shares CFD:" in stat, i think users must know how big is block, so they can choose go out and wait for next round or not. Why not make some kind of alerts like 'warning: block is large'?

You're half right, but on reverse. Deepbit uses a payout method called "proportional" which is unfair for people who stay in long rounds. Users of the pool can quit when the round is too long, and this is called the "pool-hopping" cheat (and hiding recent pool statistics is one technique used to prevent it). On the other hand, slush's pool is resilient against this cheat, and martok's is immune.

Good comment. i'll think about it.ps:"with that 4 second round I got .57 (which was the best block for me ever and was super happy)" - if you have 1ghash - then yes, you'll get that block. Any other 'slow speed-miners'like me will get sweat message 'STOLED' as the reward.))

you must be read more about bitcoin and poolmining guy.

We can't explain all this thing to you, about the block solved, the reward system, and the Difficulty that the bitcoin sever add for the block.Bitcoin not the thing that you have some time in it then you got money, and there are not the LARGE BLOCK, every block have the same difficulty, the time for 1 block of 1 pool is too long that because we solved the block not FAST enough than the other pool so is the last 5h block, may be we skipped more than 10 block because some guy solved it (slush can't share the reward if he cut off the time). The reward system if base on your power and you time on that block, i think if you want the reward, you must totally stay until we solved the block, THE BITCOIN CAN'T WAIT YOU MAN.

hope you can read and understand. I'm not good in english and sorry if you can't understand it .If you have no time for bitcoin, why you don't go for c4c ? i think it better for you.

I get 410 m/hash stable on my 5870, set core clock to 975, mem clock to 180, and fans at 75%

I'm probably not going to overclock much because 75% fanspeed would be unbareable when I try to sleep at night. 700m/hash will do me. For now!

I'm actually trying to decide what to do. I can either get two non reference 5870's or one 5970. Either setup will initialy cost me exactly the same (£250). The 5970 will use less watts but the 5870's will be quiter. Decisions, decisions!

slush one of my workers finally found a block , what does that mean exactly? that the total amount of reward finally equaled 50 ?

No, your miner was just lucky enough to find block with difficulty > target. Everytime pool find a block, somebody see +1 on his profile, so that is pretty common . I'm showing this just for curiosity, that has no effect to mining or calculating rewards.